


Begonias

by professionalcinderella



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Blind V (Mystic Messenger), Other, Reader Is Not Main Character (Mystic Messenger), V (Mystic Messenger)'s Real Name, i don't really know what i'm doing, mystic messenger spoilers, please send help.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 11:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11690742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professionalcinderella/pseuds/professionalcinderella
Summary: Begonia / Plant: Begonias are a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. Begonias symbolize warnings about future misfortunes and challenges, along with caution from new situations.





	Begonias

**Author's Note:**

> **_A COLLAB WITH JUMINSSI ON TUMBLR_**  
>  Read the first part [**HERE**](http://juminssi.tumblr.com/post/163430744948/title-lilies-fandom-mystic-messenger/)

Secrets were always hard to keep.

When Jumin had grabbed him by the collar, things felt as if they were fast-forwarded, everything beforehand a peaceful serenity. Jumin Han was rarely lost himself from composure and control was his hallmark; and the thought felt suddenly sickening when he had glimpsed the bewildered look in his slate gray irises. 

He had, somewhere deep down inside, always innately understood he was shutting Jumin out. Shutting everyone out, closing himself from the world in a search for someone that no longer existed, and it had become who he was. Jihyun had told himself that people changed, and he had to change too. Everyone was a victim of time. 

However, he was also aware that this was all just a front. He tricked himself into believing whatever he wanted to believe, whispering nothings into his mind during sleepless nights and finding new ways to pretend at the bottom of coffee cups. Yes, he was changing, changing for the better.

Not really, though.

Jihyun felt his body withering under Jumin’s grasp, and a sudden sickness found a home in his stomach. There was a gracefulness to Jumin that had always made him intimidating, but for once it had been the lack of it that frightened him; he didn’t know what kind of species this was. If Jihyun didn’t know better, he would’ve thought Jumin was simply dormant until then. 

He wished it hadn’t come to this. He wanted this to end. He wanted to save everyone. He wanted so many things, and they were all so vastly out of his reach with all the unpleasurable things within his grasp instead. There wasn’t a need to try and look at Jumin with the little vision he had to see the hurt in them. 

The calmness that emanated from Jumin when he had finally let him go was deathly, and the words that came after left an uneasy feeling amongst the two. “I’ll get you treated. I know a doctor. I’ll give him a call.”

All the veins in his body seemed tangled and constricted. Time had slowed, and then picked up again. The world shifted and spun. There was a quiet that spoke for the two of them as Jihyun found the words to speak, but he hardly said anything at all.

“Jumin… I’m very sorry. For whatever it’s worth, I hope you understand.” He couldn’t give Jumin an honest answer, and he felt the burn in his throat when he said it. Acidic secrecy lined his mouth and made him incapable of saying much more. He wished things weren’t so complicated.

“I do. And that’s what I’ve been always doing for you, Jihyun.”

“One day, maybe I’ll be able to explain.” His tone was colorless. Jumin had long since let him go, but he could still feel as if his hands were crumpling his collar even after he left.

Since the last time he had gotten into an argument with her, his right eye had refused to see much. His left eye began its steady decay as well; he understood what was happening. Yet, even when he did, he wanted to make it apart of him. If it was placed by her, he didn’t want it gone. The attachment he had discovered with his newfound state left him with discomfort gnawing at his chest for reasons he knew well at first. It wasn’t right, but he didn’t want her to disappear from him. He wanted to remember that she was real. 

He wanted to remember that  _ they  _ were real. 

His chest felt odd without her, with the white balance set wrong and the aperture too long and the lenses out of focus. All he had wanted to do was to save everyone without hurting anyone, but it was a pipe dream floating straight out of his grasp. Jihyun decided he needed to go somewhere after Jumin’s confrontation. It didn’t matter where.

It was a cloudy afternoon when he saw Jumin again, but things hadn’t changed much. Silence occupied the room and it engulfed it whole, even if the room seemed unfit of holding it; the faint scent of an earthly breeze enclosed the room and the bright canvases that lined the wall refused to give way to it. Although, to Jumin, it always smelled like an old library.

He began hesitantly, and Jumin had never been the type to walk on eggshells. “So, I’ve already spoken to the doctor and—”

“Jumin.” 

The tone of Jihyun’s voice seemed immensely small in the huge expanse of the apartment. He stared at Jumin, with the diminished sight he had. Jumin didn’t say anything. Deep down inside, he felt like Jumin already knew. 

“I’m almost completely blind. I don’t… think there would a point. In going to that doctor, I mean.” And as the words were spoken, something unraveled, put itself together, and splintered violently inside of Jumin. Jihyun didn’t need his full sight to see it; he could see it even with a fraction of his vision.

“ There’s _ no point _ ?” Jumin balled his fists. “No point? I’ve been patient, Jihyun. I’ve been far too patient, and you want to tell me there’s no point in getting you help you clearly need?”

He could feel the shards of Jumin’s explosion embedded in him. “I didn’t ask about what you were up to, I didn’t because I respect your privacy after years of friendship. But you’re asking for too much now. You didn’t want to tell me anything then, and now you don’t want me to help you? How selfish can you be?”

“I’m sorry. I hope… I hope you underst—”

“ What ? What is there to understand, when you haven’t told me anything?” His voice rose dangerously, in ferocity and volume and loud enough to where Jihyun could hear the shakiness of his friend’s breaths. “That’s the same thing you said to me last time. What have you done, Jihyun? What horrible thing could you have done to hide from even me? Tell me.”

He was asking too many questions at once. Jihyun could feel himself tearing from each limb, trying to extinguish the anguish that violently tried to overthrow him. Heartache ran through him the same way bullets did; he wondered if in another world he died by them. All he could offer was a weak smile.

A hand pressed against a counter. Jihyun stopped breathing. He could feel the anxiety that replaced his chest after the heartache. This version of Jumin was foreign and venomous.

“I don’t know what I can tell you. There isn’t much to say.” This was the furthest from the truth. Silence filled the room yet again. Jumin’s anger refused to dissipate. 

“Do you think that fucking low of me?” Jumin hardly swore (he liked to believe that swearing wasn’t needed to convey his anger) yet this sounded all the more sharp, all the more painful. “I've been your friend for a long time, Jihyun. You should already know that I'll always stand by you, I'll never leave you. And  yet , you still insist on hiding things from me. I hardly asked questions until now, but you can’t expect me to keep quiet when you’ve become blind without any explanation, your home is a completely pigsty—this is not okay. This is the furthest thing from “okay”. This is beyond just you mourning Rika’s death, I need to know what happened.”

His voice rose viciously, and his hand moved to slam whatever papers were placed next to him across the marble island table. 

The room iced over. 

Map printouts, photos of a building, and what seemed like an endless stream of papers flew across the table. Jihyun didn’t move. The writing on the paper’s seemed that of a madman’s, a spiral of thoughts and jotted ideas and obsessive circling. Jumin’s eyes scanned over all the papers frantically.

“You’re… she’s…” The words were spoken in an exhale. There wasn’t hiding it anymore, not when all the evidence was presented before him; and this was only a fraction of the work he had compiled. Slender digits moved over the papers quickly; it didn’t take much to realize what they were.

Jihyun felt a sweltering in his chest and made him incapable of speaking. A coldness fell over the nape of his neck, and Jumin was unraveling right before him. “ _She’s alive_?”

The words were a low hiss, his tone shredded against granite and scratched against sandpaper. Jihyun didn’t say anything. Jumin shoved all the papers from the table, a roar of a shout echoing throughout the apartment. 

Slowly, Jumin repeated himself again, but his volume had increased by double. Poison seeped through every syllable, anger laced between words. “ She’s been alive ?  This… this whole goddamn time?” 

Jihyun couldn’t look at him. He had been looking down, hands pressed to his sides, quietly standing. He was there and then he wasn’t; Jihyun was good at minimizing his presence as much as he was expanding it, when needed. He took up less space than other people when he shrunk himself. 

He could hardly speak. Guilt amplified Jumin’s voice by tenfold. It had taken him moments to register what had just occurred, and minutes to understand that this was happening. Jihyun didn’t have minutes, however, because by the time thirty seconds had passed Jumin had spoken again.

“Say something!  _ Anything _ , for lying to me—lying to everyone—or at least tell the truth. Do you know what would’ve happened if anyone else found out about this? Are you even aware of anybody else but her?” He felt pathetic for being three steps behind Jumin, while Jihyun was understanding what had just occurred, he was already past and beyond that. Anger warred furiously inside of Jumin while regret ate the other alive. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to tell you all. This is for everyone, to keep them safe. I’m just trying to—”

Jihyun began absentmindedly fixing the sleeve of his shirt; something Jumin remembered he did whenever he was being scolded. 

“No. Don’t bullshit me, V.”  _ V _ , Jihyun mentally noted. It sounded unfamiliar and vague coming from Jumin. “Why do you keep insisting to keep everything to yourself? Do you think we won't be able to handle this well? Help me understand, V. Help me understand, because I don’t know what kind of angle you’re playing at here. Do you even care about us at all, or are you intent on putting your selfish desires and your absolute need to keep Rika all to yourself first?”

Jumin didn’t need to say the rest for Jihyun to understand. Rika was always fleeting, always slightly out of Jihyun’s reach whenever he was finally able to catch up _. _ Jumin knew this, and now it was a weapon to use against him. But he needed this. He needed to see Jihyun respond to anything at all, even if he knew he had gone too far. A calculated risk.

“ _ Don’t _ .” It was the first time Jihyun gave a response, low and venomous enough to match Jumin’s. They didn’t break their gaze from one another. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to hide it or because I was scared.I’m trying to protect everyone. Try to understand, please. This is not for my own purposes. This is for everyo—”

“No, no this is not for everyone. Not for me. You’re holding this-this  _ burden  _ over yourself and you refuse to share it with other people, including me. You’ve been doing this alone, for months, when you shouldn’t be carrying this by yourself. You need help.” And it was by then they had both burnt out, nothing but ash in their chests as they looked at one another interminably. Jumin’s fist ground against one of the papers, as if he could put out any embers that remained inside of him with the motion alone.

They had been yelling in circles, and Jihyun knew Jumin didn’t want any more of it than he did. He wasn’t sure where to go from here. His mind turned, spun, shifted, and stilled as he mulled over what Jumin had said.  _ You’ve been doing this alone, for months, when you shouldn’t be carrying this by yourself.  _ And in truth, Jihyun was tired, but he knew early on that there would be no rest, not if he was going to try and save everyone.

He had dreamt in his sleep sometimes, of times that were good and wonderful that could happen again. Memories that could be recreated and improved upon, made even more beautiful after all the hardships. When he dreamt these things, he felt as if this burden was worth it if it payed off in the end. That, if he endured long enough, it would all be worth it some day. Somewhere deep inside of his heart, some day, they would all be happy again. 

But they weren’t there yet. The cold gray of Jumin’ eyes turned and shifted. They geared towards him again, this time with a sharpening clarity that Jihyun knew all too well—Jumin figured something out, and Jihyun was afraid of what he would ask next. His voice cut through the quiet, making it all the more louder.

“Did she do this to you?”

It was more of an accusation than a question.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic on AO3! Thank you for whichever anon that messaged me eight months ago and even now kicking me to do a collab with Alice. She bet that if I made her cry she would get her shit together for three months. With that being said, I fully intend of emotionally destroying her at every capacity in the upcoming chapters, although I'm unsure of how I've done so far. I encourage people to leave any kind of feedback down below, constructive criticism is also really appreciated! I'll give you a poem.


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